Jesus and the Disinherited is both an ethical roadmap and a work of theology. It focuses on what Christianity has to offer to oppressed people and particularly to African Americans in the 20th century, but it is also Thurman’s contribution to the longstanding theological debate surrounding the politics of Jesus. Thurman is concerned with practical applications and methodology, and he supports his theories with his interpretation of Jesus’s moral imperatives. It is important to understand that despite the New Testament’s relatively short length and the clarity of Jesus’s language, it has been subject to centuries of theological debate. Within Jesus and the Disinherited, Thurman presents his interpretation of Christian ethics, how he believes the Bible contends with human evil, and how the dominant strain of Protestant Christian thought has gotten it wrong.

Turning the other cheek, forgiving debts, and turning possessions over to the poor are very difficult for humans to do. One preeminent interpretation of Jesus’s politics, established by Martin Luther, holds that his ethical codes, and especially the Sermon on the Mount, are not meant to be understood literally, but rather as ironic metaphors that prove the sinful nature of mankind and the need for God’s forgiveness.